Page 882 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 13 March 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Moore: Are you going to go for some consistency at some stage?
MR SPEAKER: Please proceed, Mr Collaery.
MR COLLAERY: Thank you. I come back to the luncheon table at the Black Opal. It is true that I was there and that in the room was someone who might be regarded as a principal, although my searches today do not disclose whether that gentleman has a direct role in relation to the casino tender process. I am also aware that coming to the glass door during that luncheon adjournment were a number of people, the member for Canberra and other people, including the Leader of the Opposition, Rosemary Follett, and one Peter Conway, who saw me sitting at the table with Mr Geoff White. I now ask Mr Moore whether I should have the courtesy to know whether his informant is a former member of the ACT Administration. I also ask Mr Moore - - -
Mr Moore: I believe that he should ask the question through you, Mr Speaker. I believe that that is unparliamentary procedure.
MR COLLAERY: I ask through you, Mr Speaker, whether Mr Moore is aware of his obligation under the Archives Act and aware of his obligation generally as a member of parliament to have retained that document, that most important document, and not to have shredded it. I remind him that he might well have impugned himself in admitting that he shredded a vital piece of evidence that goes to the credit of one of the Attorneys in this country.
Mr Speaker, I will complete this remark because clearly I cannot respond in detail on every person I have met since April 1990 and determine whether any of them have had a connection, direct or indirect, with a principal of the casino processing. I conducted company searches this morning. I had my officers conduct company searches into the named bidders for the casino expression of interest, names that I was not aware of until the Cabinet meeting this week. There are names that I recognise, but I can find no name of anyone there that I have any recollection of meeting.
Mr Moore has also alleged that I have had private discussions. That is an horrendous allegation. I have never had any private discussions with anyone who could remotely fit that description. I may well have met people who may be on the periphery of this affair, who may well be lobbyists. We go to functions, but I can assure the house that any conversations I have had that refer to the casino have never been in the context of the casino tendering process. There may well have been jocular remarks about a casino, there may well have been comments made by those people to me; but certainly there is nothing in my life that could remotely fit any of the suggestions Mr Moore has made.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .